On Saturday 26th September, a small group of Creative stars travelled to Sheffield to take at look at the artists in the S1 Artspace. First we went to the Site Gallery, where the Bloomberg New Contemporaries 2011 exhibition was showing. The gallery had very mixed media, including photography, film and fine art. Next we headed over to the S1 Artspace studios. The studios were open plan and the interior had been built by the artists working in it. This gave the studio a very friendly atmosphere and it really felt like a community rather that just a set of workspaces. We met six different contemporay artists and a wide range of media was used again, although many of the artists’ work was sculpture based. Several artists seemed to be interested in sculpture using redundant technology or junk, another was using clips from French cinema to create his work, and another was using a range of media to create 2D work.
My personal favourites from the studios were Jessa Fairbrother and Roanna Wells. These two artists stood out partly because they were not using sculpture like the majority of the other artists. Jessa Faribrother was using long exposure photography to capture her subject’s movement, resulting in very beautiful art. She also had very interesting inspiration for her work, including women’s roles and psycho-analysis. Roanna Wells’ work, on the other hand, focused mainly on detail and incorporated lots of stitching and embroidery. Some of her work was based on looking at birds-eye views of crowds, then taking the pattern of people out of the context of the photograph. This created intricate, random patterns reminiscent of Rorshach inkblot tests, allowing each viewer to interpret the pattern differently.
It was an interesting day and the visit helped to inform the exhibition. Watch this space for an update on the selected artists.
Review by Creative Star, Katie Harris (November 2011)